Did u happen to read Darling’s hatchet job on us in the current Sporting News? Projected us 4th! No explanation why he anticipates so much from the Fish’s inexperienced linrup & mngr. yet typically he lists the 3 inmportant notes on each as:
FISH:
–Mike Stanton’s on base percentage will improve in his second season; but strikeouts will remain a problem.
–Johnson won’t duplicate his NL best 2.30 ERA; but will remain an ace
**Ramirez won’t casually jog after ball or get into dugout confrontation.
METS:
–Out of contention by July, the Mets will try to trade their high priced players
–Bay won’t match his ’09 production(36 HR,119RBI(; but will dwarf last season’s(6,47)
– Francisco Rodriguez will be more focused on & off the field.

Somehow, I don’t comprehend how he can figure the team that’s exported MAYBIN,ROSS,UGGLA. and features such little MLB experience in 4 of their 8 lineup projerctions is going to maintain it’s third place finish after 162.

By my understanding improvments in production anticipated @ 1B,2B,SS,LF,#4,#5 SP should certainly easily translate into an additional #of Ws to bypass the Fish into 3rd or at minimum the 2 additional Wins needed to finish @ .500. Certainly too much focus is being put upon Santana’s absence(11-9) last season; but how many losses did we expell jettisoning Maine & Perez. Certainly the backend’s improvement delta should more than accomodate the frontend’s loss.
There’s certainly a lot to be contributed with the concept of “BEING A HOMER” in NYC as nearly as horrific as “BEING A PEDAPHILE” since to many of these socalled “experts” do backflips as to not be perceived as one.

NB, if yesterday’s game were “in season” Emaus nearly provided a full yr of Castillo offense in one game!

If you want to keep the fences where they are, drop them down to 8 feet, and maybe you can see the excitement of an over the fence HR robbing catch again!

I would also do something about the cavern in RCF, but that is much more significant of a change. Lowering the fences would be easy.

Wonder what hatred rock he’s been hiding under.

Facts are pitchers are going to use the big park to THEIR advantage. Ours as well as our opponents. Mistakes may be driveable to LF for RH hitters but no one’s going in their on purpose.

I really don’t think having wild hackers like Francouer and Barajas behind him followed up by Tejada or Arias and the pitcher really helped Bay out too much either.

An off season that left him only 6 weeks to find housing, schools, move couldn’t have helped too much. Living up to the big contract is always a difficult adjustment, especially here and especially now that he’s at an age where players normally begin their decline.

Our home field can and should be a home field advantage for us. Any moving in of the fences is going to result in more HR’s for both teams. The OFer’s that we have in the minors (by enlarge) don’t profile to be big slugger types. Puello, Den Dekker, Niuwenhaus, Ceccilini but speaddier better defending doubles type hitters.

I prefer to watch the all around player anyway. Home run derby is OK once a year but I’ll take the line drive, great defender anyday.

You have to again wonder about the thought process behind signing Bay. True we didn’t hit many in 2009. The summer was also wet and cool. That makes a difference. Our two best hitters went down early, so did Reyes who gets #2 and #3 a lot of fastballs. Murphy was lost at the plate for 3 months, Castillo got pitches cause he forces you to throw him some and he doesn’t exactly scare you. Church swung through a million pitches, Schneider and Santos aren’t protecting anyone and Cora wasn’t setting the NL on fire. The fact is we had a s*** line up.

If it’s all about the HR’s at Citi then you better get your pitch early because your not getting anything to pull later in the count, especially with men OB.

The Stadium does play long but I wouldn’t change a thing other than looking for line drive hitters who can run down a deer and posses a cannon out there.

What happens to a ground ball pitcher who gets the ball up?

OVER THE FENCE!

Right now those pitches are staying in the park due to it’s depth. You really got to get all of it to send the ball out.

If Bay can’t hit HRs in Citifield the solution is to replace Bay not the Fence positioning.

Get a guy who could hit it out of any park if you really want more homeruns. Me personally I say if you hit for average and can drive it to the Gap (which Bay did last year when he did hit) thats really all you need.

Lets stop blaming the field here. HRs are very exciting but most HRs are hits that would go out no matter how far away the fence is. To try and get 15 more from one batter by moving in the fences only increases EVERY batter’s chances (Including thr opposition’s) of hitting a HR.

So whatever you get from increasing the HRs of the 3 or 4 guys on your team who hit for power, you will lose by allowing the other side to hit that many more as well!

It’s just not worth it!
Why do you think the Phillies had to go out and spend all that money on Pitching? Because you need a pretty good pitcher to keep anything inside that park!

As the OP noted, Bay’s problems were far deeper than just Citi.
He didn’t hit them on the road Either.

Thats says to me the problem is Bay not the field. As has been true since the advent of baseball. Instead of swinging for the fences just hit the ball hard…the HRs will follow as a result and the average will ultimatly lead to more runs than waiting for the big HR will!

oh wait…

Meanwhile Pelfrey, Dickey, Niese, Young and Capuano will give up 10 more HRs each so what did we gain?

What amazes me about Bay is he has such a high BABIP for an over whelming fly ball hitter. That usually happens with line drive hitters.

Greg, I believe, like lemmings Met faithful have been led, by the press, to believe Citi is this unassailable castle, on the contrary, while the dimensions combined with all of his supportuing offense being MIA, certainly combined to overwhelm Wright that innaugral campaign; however he DID bounce back nicely last season & to blame Citi’s vastness is grasping for the low hanging fruit of excuses, in Jason’s case, he most likely suffered from BIG CONTRACT” heebie jeebies, psyched himself as so many do. Bay plays 6.5 yrs in a canyon(PNC) & only 1.5 seasons in cozy Fenway, yet we’re to believe only that latter period is valid for comparisons. Whgile PNC IS LONGER! CITI IS TALLER(Great Wall of Flushing. PNC’s LF wall is merely 6′ high compasred to Citi’s 12′ jumping to 18’5″ Cettainly negates PNC’s 410′ distance to LCF compared to Citi’s mere 379′.

My solution would be to add enough rowsw of seats in front of the existing ones that lowers the height 6 or 7′ at least, thus potentially increasing revenue fcreated by additional capacity. How this detracts from ERA is yet TBD.

Bay ‘knows’ he can hit it far enough; fans are being misled by press Why doesn’t the length seem to impose an equal impediment to opposition? Significant design change MUST wait ubtil offseason